Former Mark Keppel coach in Alhambra receives sentence for sexually abusing player

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Former Mark Keppel High girls’ basketball coach Joseph Kikuchi at the Alhambra Courthouse on Friday, Oct. 23, 2015. He was sentenced to five years in county jail on Feb. 9, 2017 for sexually abusing one of his players. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda/ San Gabriel Valley Tribune)

ALHAMBRA >> Former Mark Keppel High girls basketball coach Joseph Kikuchi was sentenced Thursday to five years in county jail for sexual abuse and molestation of a player on his team.

Kikuchi did not offer a statement during the hearing at the Alhambra Courthouse Thursday before he was taken into custody.

In January, Kikuchi pleaded no contest to all 23 counts he faced — 12 felony counts of sexual penetration by foreign object, five felony counts of lewd act upon a child, one felony count of oral copulation of a person under 16 and five misdemeanor counts of child molesting.

Kikuchi will be required to register as a sex offender for life and will serve the five-year sentence in Los Angeles County Jail, pursuant to AB 109, Judge Jared Moses said.

The sentence appeared to contradict the state law, known as Public Safety Realignment, which sent non-volent offenders in state prisons to county jails. AB 109 states that felons convicted of sex offenses against children must go to state prison, not local jails.

Another sentencing hearing is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Feb. 14 at the Alhambra Courthouse to “make a correction to the record,” said Los Angeles County Superior Court spokeswoman Mary Hearn. Hearn would not say if the correction was related to AB 109, or if the term of the sentence can be changed at Tuesday’s hearing.

Facing a maximum of 191/2 years, Moses said Kikuchi did not appear to be a future danger, which factored into the sentencing.

Assistant District Attorney Rena Durant had asked for a sentence of 12 years, one for each month the abuse had taken place.

Durant argued the abuse that took place from February to September 2015 showed planning, sophistication and professionalism.

She said Kikuchi’s crime was not one of opportunity, occurring once in a moment of weakness. Durant said Kikuchi had groomed the victim, who was 14 years old when the relationship first began.

He appealed to the victim’s “Disney movie” fairy tale concept of romance, Durant said, taking her to dinners, including one Christmas dinner at the Langham Huntington hotel. He bought her jewelry, including a “promise ring” that he said meant he would love her forever.

Later in the relationship, text messages recovered by the Alhambra Police Department presented by Durant on Thursday show the relationship displayed signs of domestic abuse. The victim attempted multiple times to end the relationship, especially after rumors of it began to spread around Mark Keppel.

“I’m 16,” the victim wrote in one message. “I’m not supposed to be with my coach. What we’re doing is not right and you know that.”

But every time the victim attempted to end the relationship, Kikuchi would threaten to take away her playing time, demote her to a lower team or to speak badly of her to college coaches who might have been interested in recruiting her, Durant said.

The extent of Kikuchi’s manipulation of the victim was apparent in his control over her social media accounts — he regularly had her end online relations with boys her age — and in his attempts to cover up their relationship, Durant said.

To hide the relationship, Kikuchi befriended the victim’s father to justify the time he spent with the victim. Once rumors began to circulate within the locker room, Kikuchi falsely claimed to the rest of his team that he was spending time with the victim because she was being abused at home, Durant said.

Once the police were notified of the possible relationship, Kikuchi gave the victim instructions to deny the allegations, and she stuck to the story until police presented her with text messages found on Kikuchi’s phone.

In a letter to Moses, the victim’s father wrote that his family’s lives had been shattered by the abuse and that the victim only resembles her old self when surrounded by friends or immersed in an activity.

“My daughter pretends she’s doing OK, but she weeps quietly when she’s alone,” the father wrote. He said she has lost her ability to focus, and no longer has confidence in herself.

About 30 Kikuchi supporters showed up to the hearing on Thursday, and 10 read letters defending his character.

Most said Kikuchi had found religion shortly after his arrest in September 2015 and had begun volunteering to help homeless people on Skid Row in Los Angeles. Others recounted specific stories about Kikuchi going out of his way to help them.

In arguing for a probation sentence, Kikuchi’s attorney, Mia Yamamoto, said the community members who showed up represented all of the good Kikuchi had done as a coach.

Moses noted the challenge in considering the two views of Kikuchi presented, one of a caring father and husband and a dedicated coach, the other of a person who carefully manipulated a girl 40 years younger than him.

“The question I have for us to ponder is how can we reconcile that (positive) portrait with the other one we’ve seen,” Moses said.

“He demonstrated hard work for many years, but he also underwent a course of action that jeopardized all of it and did incalculable damage to the victims and his families.”

Kikuchi coached at Mark Keppel for three seasons until he resigned on Sept. 15, 2015. He said at the time the resignation was due to personal health concerns, but by then Alhambra Police had already begun investigating allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a student.

Durant noted Thursday that after school administrators first received a tip about Kikuchi and the victim’s relationship, they simply asked him if it was true, which he denied. She said the administrators swept the matter under the rug until they received another tip with a written chronology detailing the growth of the relationship.

Not long after Kikuchi’s arrest, then-Mark Keppel Principal Jacinth Cisneros and then-Assistant Principal Khevin DeVaughn were placed on administrative leave.

Kikuchi was arrested by Alhambra Police detectives a week later, and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office filed charges against him in October 2015. The trial had been delayed several times at the request of Kikuchi and his lawyer, pushing proceedings into 2017.

Christopher Yee is a reporter for the Pasadena Star-News and San Gabriel Valley Tribune covering cities in the west and central parts of the San Gabriel Valley. He grew up in Monterey Park and studied journalism at East Los Angeles College and UC Berkeley. You may find him at Dodger Stadium or at the Staples Center for L.A. Kings games.